It has long been an objective of cookware manufacturers to provide cookware having improved strength, improved resistance to heat deformation, as well as the ability to hide scratches and other deformations. For these purposes, textured cooking surfaces are known and used. Textured cooking surfaces have also been provided for the drainage of fat and grease away from the food to lower the fat and cholesterol content of the cooked food. Textured cooking surfaces enable a cook to effectively fry food in a minimal amount of fat or grease. In recent years, non-stick coatings are frequently applied to the cooking surface to provide ease of use and make the cookware easier to clean.
However, the combination of non-stick coatings and textured cooking surfaces has always resulted in one or more drawbacks. Specifically, it is inherently difficult to provide a textured cooking surface which does not have sharp edges which tend to bind or catch a spatula or a cleaning utensil. The non-stick coating disposed on these sharp edges wears quickly and the benefits provided by the non-stick coating are compromised because the coating will quickly wear off of up to and over 50% of the surface area of conventional textured cooking surfaces.
Thus, practitioners in the art of cookware have not been very successful at combining non-stick coatings with textured cooking surfaces and there is a need for such an effective combination. Preferably, the textured surface would provide for low-fat or non-fat cooking and would also be of a geometrical configuration that would hold a non-stick coating for an extended period of time. Further, it would be highly preferable for the textured surface to retain its non-stick capabilities after portions of the non-stick coating have worn off. Such wear is inevitable, even with non-textured cooking surfaces. If an effective non-stick coating/textured surface combination could be provided, the result would have an improved textured cooking surface with an improved non-stick coating with a longer effective lifespan because the non-stick capabilities would extend beyond the inevitable initial wearing of the non-stick coating from some portions of the textured surface.